The War Revisited - Inside the Box

From the Economist, March 18th:

"When the American army overran Iraq three years ago, it was famously short of military policemen, Arabic-speakers and good ideas for putting the country back together again. But the army's historians have since then made the most of a unique opportunity: the chance to question Saddam Hussein's top generals and advisers about what happened inside the regime before and during the war. The findings are to be published next month in a book-length report. But its authors have published a preview on the website of the New York-based journal, Foreign Affairs. It contains some riveting findings.

One of these, based mainly on the testimony of Tariq Aziz, Saddam's deputy prime minister, is that right up to the last moment the dictator did not expect America to attack, because of the faith he had in pressure from Russia and France in the UN Security Council. Mr. Aziz told his interrogators that the two countries had received millions of dollars of trade and service contracts with Iraq, "with the implied understanding that their political posture...would be pro-Iraqi". Even after the invasion, Saddam did not expect the Americans to fight all the way to Baghdad-a delusion that prevented him from torching his oilfields or opening the dams to flood southern Iraq. Fixated at first on internal threats, instead of the advancing American army, Saddam later came to believe that Iraq was winning, and continued to think so until American tanks reached Baghdad. His own generals were far too scared of him to risk breaking the bad news.

As for those weapons of mass destruction (WMD), it seems that some senior members of the ruling circle never stopped believing, even after the war, that Iraq had these, even though Saddam himself knew otherwise. When he revealed the truth to members of his Revolutionary Command Council not long before the war, their morale slumped. But he refused a suggestion to make the truth clear to the wider world on the ground that his presumed possession of WMD was a form of deterrence, and that coming clean might encourage an attack by Israel. Instead, of course, the dictator's non-existent WMD became one reason America gave for its decision to topple him. This was, without doubt, the mother of all ironies."

Reproducing this article isn't to suggest that the war was justified. I believe, as I always have, that the war was a mistake. However, I don't agree with those that claim the Bush administration purposefully lied about the WMD to drag us into a war. Clearly, Saddam Hussein wanted us to think he had WMD. Is it any surprise that he convinced us? The only discrepancy here is that Saddam was misguided about the potential consequences of that belief. He thought it was a deterrent; it was the opposite.

Things never change. The French and the Russians undermining America's effort to oust Saddam...for what? A principled stand against the US, justified by reason, would certainly have been acceptable. Saddam wasn't a threat; Saddam was containable; Saddam wasn't friendly with Al Qaeda. But the Russians and French stood against us because of some contracts; and certainly because of the satisfaction in thwarting the only remaining superpower.

And today, we find the Russians (and Chinese) doing the same thing in the case of Iran. It will come back to bite them in the ass, the next time they need American support. A nuclear armed Iran is a greater threat to France and Russia than it is to us.